Description

It is our silver anniversary in the training and education industry and we are celebrating it with you!
Receive your exclusive and complimentary access to the IDC Technologies’ “Swiss Army Knife of Videos on Engineering Skills”.
We have put together over 70 technical videos with more than 15 hours of practical tips and advice presented by highly industry-experienced instructors with decades of combined knowledge in the field.
This unique toolkit has been carefully crafted to give you instant access to solid engineering and technical concepts essential in today’s competitive working environment.

Investment

Instructor

Behrouz Ghorbanian

Behrouz has completed degree courses in Telecommunications and Electrical Engineering overseas. He also completed his studies in Electrical Utility Engineering at Curtin University in 2004. Behrouz started his career in the oil and gas industry where his role got him involved in the maintenance and repair of electronic and navigational marine equipment (VHF and SSB radios, Sat Nav, engine control panels etc). He then moved to the power industry and was involved in the design, installation, and commissioning of substations mainly for consultancies and utilities. He has also established a good reputation in teaching power system protection over his long term services lecturing at Curtin University, and also over the period he worked as a Protection Engineer in New Zealand.

Over the past years, Behrouz has been involved in many major projects across Australia (Port Hedland, Barrow Island, Tamar Valley, Karratha, and Newman for example). His most recent experience is related to cost estimation and risk assessment of major substation projects with a special focus on the secondary systems (Protection, COMMS, SCADA). He has also worked as an Engineering Manager and Senior Project Engineer on major copper mine projects overseas. Behrouz has also gained good knowledge in substation design, HV cables sizing and installation, transmission system design, earthing system design and applications, and power system protection design and applications.

John Piperides

John is a professional electrical engineer with over 25 years experience in industrial maintenance, production, management, sales and improvement. He has held management positions in several manufacturing and sales companies. His diverse responsibilities have included contract negotiation, authoring and responsibility of departmental budgets, daily management of over 20 reports, practice of cGMP, auditing in a pharmaceutical plant, and system administration and programming of diverse IT and embedded systems. He has been directly involved with industries including building management, pest control, mining, power utilities, food, pharmaceutical, steel, building products, sugar, paper and pulp, rail and airports.

John has completed many years of further education including developing, writing and delivering many work based courses and seminars. He has spent 10 years as a part time teacher at TAFE in electrical engineering, and 15 years delivering structured courses in thermography, power quality, instrument safety, motor drive theory, PLC, SCADA, and pest inspection

Dr Srinivas Shastri

Srinivas has worked in a variety of roles ranging from process engineering to academia and has gained experience in a number of areas. He has worked across cultures in India, Singapore, New Zealand and Aaustralia.

Srinivas started off as a process engineer and then moved to industrial research culminating in the development of a model of the complex hydrometallurgical process of hydrogen reduction of nickel. as a research engineer, Srinivas worked on an optimization solution for a refinery in Singapore before embarking on research into alarm Management. The software was successfully implemented in a large refinery, and the research group has spun off into a company. In a faculty role, he had the pleasure of mentoring and developing young engineers while continuing to build strong links with industry. Entering the alternative energy industry, he led the modelling effort of the shale to liquid process and significantly contributed to the design of a 115,000 bpd commercial facility.

Srinivas is currently developing, in addition to traditional process engineering support, areas of alternative energy technologies, scoping studies, and is actively involved in Business Development.

Frikkie Marx

Frikkie has over 20 years of experience in the fields of Power Systems from design to industrialisation. He started his career on the Power System Protection side, then migrated to EMC and Power Supply Systems. Frikkie's portfolio of achievements includes the design of Power Systems, Switch Mode Power Supplies, UPS, high precision Servo Amplifiers, battery and Inverter Design for solar panel applications, vehicle management, specialised computer systems and high current starter for vehicle plants. Lecturer and course developer of Industrial and Power electronics for Technikon SA (UNISA). Project Manager/System engineer for the development of Electro-optical systems which include video systems for UAV’s and a high resolution Infra-Red Camera. Other activities include the mentorship programs of Kentron, Industrial electronics, rockets and robots training programme for the Denel Youth Foundation Bridging Program as well as training consultant.

Tom Neillings

Tom started his career as an engine fitter in the RAF. After leaving the RAF Tom worked in oil and gas North Sea projects. During this period he gained valuable experience and knowledge of diesel power generating systems operating in harsh environments. Tom continued his career in South Africa with a short period in Saudi Arabia.

Tom's down-to-earth and practical, yet entertaining approach to the subject of diesel generators makes him a sought after speaker and instructor in this area. His enthusiastic approach to training coupled with his helpful nature is guaranteed to maximise the learning outcome for his delegates.

Roland Green

Roland brings more than 20 years’ experience in engineering and estimating fields, gained mostly in South Africa. He has worked on many projects spanning the minerals industry, including power stations, coal stockyards and manganese. The past two years Roland has being extensively involved with major projects across Western Australia ranging from $460 Mil to projects of more than a few Billion dollars.

Deon Reynders

Deon is an Electronics Engineer with over 40 years postgraduate experience encompassing middle management, engineering consulting, management consulting, hardware and software development, systems engineering, project management, marketing, and industrial relations. He has experience of both large and small business environments. He also is an experienced teacher with HOD and Governing Board experience at University level.

His current areas of specialisation include Information Technology (IT ) with an industrial focus, Radio Telemetry Systems, Industrial Networking (LAN technology), and Internet technologies and applications including TCP /IP , the use of Web technologies for process control and OPC . Over the past 15 years he has provided consulting and training services to clients in the USA, Canada, Ireland, the UK, South Africa, Botswana, Trinidad, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Egypt.

He is co-author of several technical books, of which two (Industrial Data Networks and Modern SCADA Protocols) have been published by Butterworths (Newnes). Deon has prepared course material and presented to thousands of engineers and technicians all over the world. Topics include industrial data communications, industrial networking (including fieldbuses and device networks), radio telemetry systems, Ethernet, TCP/IP, OPC , network security, and financial management for engineers and technicians

Govindaraghavan Vijayaraghavan

Vijay’s experience is primarily in the field of industrial power distribution systems. He has contributed to the design, engineering, commissioning and operation of HV distribution equipment in steel industry for over 15 years which includes outdoor switchyards, indoor MV switchgear and distribution substations. He has also been trained in the operation of large captive power plants forming part of integrated steel plant systems. He has worked as the head of testing of protection and HV equipment in a large 4 MTPA integrated steel plant.

He has also served as the head of the electrical and instrumentation group for over 2 decades in a firm of consulting engineers handling several large international projects, including the power distribution systems of large metallurgical industries and the integrated power generation plants, the captive thermal power generation unit of an Aluminium smelting and refining complex and Tonnage oxygen plants associated with steel manufacturing, among several others.

Vijay has been associated with IDC/EIT for over 10 years and has designed and presented training courses on various topics related to electrical power engineering. Vijay is a popular instructor his students often seek his advice in analysing and solving technical problems at work, sometimes long after the completion of the course itself.

Kobus Harmse

One word describes Kobus. Passionate! He loves his work in chemical engineering. He has worked in a number of roles at Sasol in the chemical engineering area ranging from the ammonia business, to ultra high purity hydrogen and solvents. Latterly he's been responsible for optimisation support in the Monomers and Polymers business. He spent a year doing detail engineering in Texas which he found a tremendously positive influence on his career.

Kobus has received outstanding reviews with his presentations of this course overseas; with many participants commenting on his strong practical bias thanks to his experiences in chemical engineering.

John Lawrence

John is an accomplished and practising Project Manager who has been involved in the mining and oil industries, banking, investment and finance sectors for over 25 years. His extensive Project Management skills have been acquired through various contrasting project types - application development projects, company infrastructure set-up in multi-million dollar technical and mining evaluation systems, IT component company relocations and strategy development.

His adaptive approach to Project Management has proven invaluable to numerous clients - from hands-on to a consultancy capacity relative to key prevailing factors. He has a strong belief in Post Project Reviews and feeding this experience back into new projects. John is particularly enthusiastic about the opportunity in using software tools to improve the management of projects - both engineering and IT based.

In the past 10 years John has concentrated on the areas of Project Management and Technical training with a number of European and North American based companies. His individual style of training and successful transfer of information methods have made him a highly sought after instructor. An inspiring and professional instructor, you will benefit from and enjoy John’s presentations, including Project Management, Technical and Specification Writing, Data Communications and Networking.

Ian Verhappen

Ian has been involved in digital communications since 1994 installing the first multi- vendor Foundation Fieldbus project in 1996. Since then, Ian has served as both a leading Project Engineer/Designer and an external/cold eyes review consultant for a number of companies and in pulp and paper, mining, food processing, water and wastewater, oil sands processing, petrochemical and refining industries. Ian is co-author, with Augusto Pereira, of ISA's popular "Foundation Fieldbus Pocket Guide" now in its fourth edition..

Ian is also an active volunteer with ISA, serving as Vice-President of the Standards and Practices 2005/6 and is presently Canadian Chair of IEC TC65, SC65B and SC65E.. Ian is known as a digital communications evangelist and his passion for the topic has taken him around the world to share his experiences.

Ian has accumulated over 20 years experience in oil sands mining where he supported plant operations using standard mining processes of slurry transport, flotation / separation cells and multiphase flow. He is also experienced in truck and shovel operations with associated crushing and solids transport including real time maintenance/operating data for this mobile equipment via wireless communications.

Ian has the ability to explain technology in simple terms that can be understood by others without the same level of theory or experience, a rare quality!

Haresh Khemani

Haresh Khemani is passionate about Mechanical Engineering, and teaching and writing. In a career spanning over 17 years he has gained extensive industrial experience in the area of utilities, which provides him command in this field to teach and provide consultancy. Haresh has worked in the installation, erection, and commissioning of utility plants, such as air compression plants, water chilling plants, central air conditioning systems, chlorine liquefaction plants, diesel generators, and payloader etc. He has been responsible for the maintenance and operations of the above plants, along with boiler plants, and various types of pumps and blowers.

As a lecturer at the SSVPS College of Engineering, Haresh has taught his favorite subjects including Refrigeration and Air Conditioning (HVAC), Thermodynamics, Automobile Engineering, Power Plant Engineering and Industrial Instrumentation. He has written course materials on HVAC and other subjects for multiple companies including IDC.

One of his major involvements has been with www.brighthub.com, where he and his team have published more than 2500 articles covering various areas of engineering. He has personally written more than 400 articles for the website.

Over the years, Haresh has specialized in the fields of utilities of which HVAC is the major part. He has worked in the industry as HVAC consultant and has also written a number articles and course materials in this field.

Robert Holm

After completing his studies in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (MEng) and applied mathematics (BSc Hons) in 1997, Robert worked in industry as a power electronics design engineer. The design of electrical machines was his next pursuit, and he completed a PhD at TU Delft in the Netherlands on this subject. His thesis project was not only an academic study, but very practical: a high-speed permanent-magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) was built from his design and mounted as part of a flywheel in a passenger bus in Eindhoven, where it was in active service for several years. Upon his return to South Africa, Robert worked in teaching and research at two universities: University of Johannesburg (UJ) and North-West University (NWU). While at NWU, he designed three more high-speed PMSMs for industrial and research applications. He was also involved with solar, wind and hydrogen energy systems. Next, Robert ventured into the gold mining industry by working for Gold Fields Mining Innovations as electrical engineer, where he completed novel electromechanical and power electronics designs for mining robots. His experience in mining robotics then led him to the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), where he worked in field robotics software development. Since late 2014, Robert moved back into his previous field of electrical machine design via an internal transfer to the CSIR Landward Sciences competency area. Several high- and low-speed machines are being designed for military and civil applications (particularly the rail industry). His current activities include electrical machine design, power electronics, drives and power systems, control systems and PLC/SCADA applications. Robert's previous career experience includes: software engineering, mathematical modeling, computer vision, robotics, sensors, systems engineering, transformers, switchgear, power systems and other high-power electrical engineering, embedded design, industrial power systems and renewable energy.

Hadi Harb

Hadi has more than 15 years of experience in the development and management of Artificial Intelligence and Audio Signal Processing projects.

From 2000 to 2004 he pursued his PhD working on content-based multimedia indexing. He then worked as a research engineer at Centrale Lyon Innovation SA from 2004 to 2006. During his PhD and research engineer work period, he participated in many R&D projects in collaboration with world-class institutions such as INRIA, France Télécom R&D and IRCAM. He issued for 2 patents and published 17 articles in known international scientific journals and conference proceedings.

From 2006 to 2015 he co-founded and managed Ghanni, a company specialized in multimedia content recommendation and identification. Several European radio stations and websites licensed Ghanni’s music recommendation technology. In 2015 he restructured Ghanni to transform it into a consultancy company in the domain of Artificial Intelligence where he acts as the principle consultant. His current interests are in the application of Artificial Intelligence techniques to natural language understanding and human-like process control.

Hadi holds a MEng (2000) in electrical-electronic engineering. He earned his MSc in 2001 and PhD in 2004 both in computer science from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées INSA Lyon, and the Ecole Centrale de Lyon respectively.

Paul Maj

In 1990, Paul was appointed Adjunct Professor at the Technical University of Denmark’s Institute of Automatic Control Systems. The Technical University of Denmark is one of the leading universities in Europe. He was responsible for teaching the industrial applications of microprocessors and networking technologies and after winning a competitive grant commissioned a pilot plant with the associated control systems.

As Associate Professor in the Australian University sector he was responsible for teaching computer and network systems engineering. In this capacity he twice won a university teaching award for excellence – one of only three staff to have achieved this distinction. In addition to this he received a National Carrick Citation Award for the development of world class curriculum.

As Deputy Chairman on the educational sub-committee of the Institute of Instrumentation & Control in Western Australia (IICA-WA) he was instrumental in the development of first degree in Instrumentation and Control in Australia.

His work received international recognition. Paul was invited to collaborate with some of the world’s leading organisations responsible for defining international standards and educational best practices.

He was the first Australian invited to be a reviewer for the American National Science Foundation (NSF) course and curriculum improvement program held in Washington, DC. Paul was the first Australian to be a judge for three IEEE International Education Awards for Academics. The IEEE is the world’s largest professional body for the advancement of technology. Paul was a key note speaker at the 12th International Conference on Electrical, Engineering/Electronics, Computer, Telecommunications and Information Technology in June, 2015. His presentation was; World class ICT curriculum – eLearning, pedagogy and international best practices. Paul is also an active researcher and reviewer for a number of international journals.

Allan Butler

Allan worked for Curtin University and Australian Defense Force before joining SECWA in 1990, where he worked in remote power stations commissioning and decommissioning various power stations in the north of Western Australia. In 1992, he joined the DBNGP as their Corrosion Protection Officer, from which he was internally promoted up the organisation holding various roles nationally and state based for the various owners of the DBNGP. The roles varied across operations, maintenance and projects where he has had direct and indirect responsibility.
Allan was the project manager on a significant SCADA upgrade which controlled one of Australia’s largest SCADA systems, spanning some 1600 kilometres and supplied natural gas to the Perth Metropolitan Area from the Carnarvon basin.
Allan has recently completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Control Systems and Project Management and is currently completing a Master’s Degree in Automation Control and Business Management.
Allan has been elected to the grade of senior member of the IEEE and also holds memberships with the Australian Institute of Project Management and currently sits on the ISA committee for alarm management.

It is our silver anniversary in the training and education industry and we are celebrating it with you!
Receive your exclusive and complimentary access to the IDC Technologies’ “Swiss Army Knife of Videos on Engineering Skills”.
We have put together over 70 technical videos with more than 15 hours of practical tips and advice presented by highly industry-experienced instructors with decades of combined knowledge in the field.
This unique toolkit has been carefully crafted to give you instant access to solid engineering and technical concepts essential in today’s competitive working environment.

Behrouz Ghorbanian

Behrouz has completed degree courses in Telecommunications and Electrical Engineering overseas. He also completed his studies in Electrical Utility Engineering at Curtin University in 2004. Behrouz started his career in the oil and gas industry where his role got him involved in the maintenance and repair of electronic and navigational marine equipment (VHF and SSB radios, Sat Nav, engine control panels etc). He then moved to the power industry and was involved in the design, installation, and commissioning of substations mainly for consultancies and utilities. He has also established a good reputation in teaching power system protection over his long term services lecturing at Curtin University, and also over the period he worked as a Protection Engineer in New Zealand.

Over the past years, Behrouz has been involved in many major projects across Australia (Port Hedland, Barrow Island, Tamar Valley, Karratha, and Newman for example). His most recent experience is related to cost estimation and risk assessment of major substation projects with a special focus on the secondary systems (Protection, COMMS, SCADA). He has also worked as an Engineering Manager and Senior Project Engineer on major copper mine projects overseas. Behrouz has also gained good knowledge in substation design, HV cables sizing and installation, transmission system design, earthing system design and applications, and power system protection design and applications.

John Piperides

John is a professional electrical engineer with over 25 years experience in industrial maintenance, production, management, sales and improvement. He has held management positions in several manufacturing and sales companies. His diverse responsibilities have included contract negotiation, authoring and responsibility of departmental budgets, daily management of over 20 reports, practice of cGMP, auditing in a pharmaceutical plant, and system administration and programming of diverse IT and embedded systems. He has been directly involved with industries including building management, pest control, mining, power utilities, food, pharmaceutical, steel, building products, sugar, paper and pulp, rail and airports.

John has completed many years of further education including developing, writing and delivering many work based courses and seminars. He has spent 10 years as a part time teacher at TAFE in electrical engineering, and 15 years delivering structured courses in thermography, power quality, instrument safety, motor drive theory, PLC, SCADA, and pest inspection

Dr Srinivas Shastri

Srinivas has worked in a variety of roles ranging from process engineering to academia and has gained experience in a number of areas. He has worked across cultures in India, Singapore, New Zealand and Aaustralia.

Srinivas started off as a process engineer and then moved to industrial research culminating in the development of a model of the complex hydrometallurgical process of hydrogen reduction of nickel. as a research engineer, Srinivas worked on an optimization solution for a refinery in Singapore before embarking on research into alarm Management. The software was successfully implemented in a large refinery, and the research group has spun off into a company. In a faculty role, he had the pleasure of mentoring and developing young engineers while continuing to build strong links with industry. Entering the alternative energy industry, he led the modelling effort of the shale to liquid process and significantly contributed to the design of a 115,000 bpd commercial facility.

Srinivas is currently developing, in addition to traditional process engineering support, areas of alternative energy technologies, scoping studies, and is actively involved in Business Development.

Frikkie Marx

Frikkie has over 20 years of experience in the fields of Power Systems from design to industrialisation. He started his career on the Power System Protection side, then migrated to EMC and Power Supply Systems. Frikkie's portfolio of achievements includes the design of Power Systems, Switch Mode Power Supplies, UPS, high precision Servo Amplifiers, battery and Inverter Design for solar panel applications, vehicle management, specialised computer systems and high current starter for vehicle plants. Lecturer and course developer of Industrial and Power electronics for Technikon SA (UNISA). Project Manager/System engineer for the development of Electro-optical systems which include video systems for UAV’s and a high resolution Infra-Red Camera. Other activities include the mentorship programs of Kentron, Industrial electronics, rockets and robots training programme for the Denel Youth Foundation Bridging Program as well as training consultant.

Tom Neillings

Tom started his career as an engine fitter in the RAF. After leaving the RAF Tom worked in oil and gas North Sea projects. During this period he gained valuable experience and knowledge of diesel power generating systems operating in harsh environments. Tom continued his career in South Africa with a short period in Saudi Arabia.

Tom's down-to-earth and practical, yet entertaining approach to the subject of diesel generators makes him a sought after speaker and instructor in this area. His enthusiastic approach to training coupled with his helpful nature is guaranteed to maximise the learning outcome for his delegates.

Roland Green

Roland brings more than 20 years’ experience in engineering and estimating fields, gained mostly in South Africa. He has worked on many projects spanning the minerals industry, including power stations, coal stockyards and manganese. The past two years Roland has being extensively involved with major projects across Western Australia ranging from $460 Mil to projects of more than a few Billion dollars.

Deon Reynders

Deon is an Electronics Engineer with over 40 years postgraduate experience encompassing middle management, engineering consulting, management consulting, hardware and software development, systems engineering, project management, marketing, and industrial relations. He has experience of both large and small business environments. He also is an experienced teacher with HOD and Governing Board experience at University level.

His current areas of specialisation include Information Technology (IT ) with an industrial focus, Radio Telemetry Systems, Industrial Networking (LAN technology), and Internet technologies and applications including TCP /IP , the use of Web technologies for process control and OPC . Over the past 15 years he has provided consulting and training services to clients in the USA, Canada, Ireland, the UK, South Africa, Botswana, Trinidad, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Egypt.

He is co-author of several technical books, of which two (Industrial Data Networks and Modern SCADA Protocols) have been published by Butterworths (Newnes). Deon has prepared course material and presented to thousands of engineers and technicians all over the world. Topics include industrial data communications, industrial networking (including fieldbuses and device networks), radio telemetry systems, Ethernet, TCP/IP, OPC , network security, and financial management for engineers and technicians

Govindaraghavan Vijayaraghavan

Vijay’s experience is primarily in the field of industrial power distribution systems. He has contributed to the design, engineering, commissioning and operation of HV distribution equipment in steel industry for over 15 years which includes outdoor switchyards, indoor MV switchgear and distribution substations. He has also been trained in the operation of large captive power plants forming part of integrated steel plant systems. He has worked as the head of testing of protection and HV equipment in a large 4 MTPA integrated steel plant.

He has also served as the head of the electrical and instrumentation group for over 2 decades in a firm of consulting engineers handling several large international projects, including the power distribution systems of large metallurgical industries and the integrated power generation plants, the captive thermal power generation unit of an Aluminium smelting and refining complex and Tonnage oxygen plants associated with steel manufacturing, among several others.

Vijay has been associated with IDC/EIT for over 10 years and has designed and presented training courses on various topics related to electrical power engineering. Vijay is a popular instructor his students often seek his advice in analysing and solving technical problems at work, sometimes long after the completion of the course itself.

Kobus Harmse

One word describes Kobus. Passionate! He loves his work in chemical engineering. He has worked in a number of roles at Sasol in the chemical engineering area ranging from the ammonia business, to ultra high purity hydrogen and solvents. Latterly he's been responsible for optimisation support in the Monomers and Polymers business. He spent a year doing detail engineering in Texas which he found a tremendously positive influence on his career.

Kobus has received outstanding reviews with his presentations of this course overseas; with many participants commenting on his strong practical bias thanks to his experiences in chemical engineering.

John Lawrence

John is an accomplished and practising Project Manager who has been involved in the mining and oil industries, banking, investment and finance sectors for over 25 years. His extensive Project Management skills have been acquired through various contrasting project types - application development projects, company infrastructure set-up in multi-million dollar technical and mining evaluation systems, IT component company relocations and strategy development.

His adaptive approach to Project Management has proven invaluable to numerous clients - from hands-on to a consultancy capacity relative to key prevailing factors. He has a strong belief in Post Project Reviews and feeding this experience back into new projects. John is particularly enthusiastic about the opportunity in using software tools to improve the management of projects - both engineering and IT based.

In the past 10 years John has concentrated on the areas of Project Management and Technical training with a number of European and North American based companies. His individual style of training and successful transfer of information methods have made him a highly sought after instructor. An inspiring and professional instructor, you will benefit from and enjoy John’s presentations, including Project Management, Technical and Specification Writing, Data Communications and Networking.

Ian Verhappen

Ian has been involved in digital communications since 1994 installing the first multi- vendor Foundation Fieldbus project in 1996. Since then, Ian has served as both a leading Project Engineer/Designer and an external/cold eyes review consultant for a number of companies and in pulp and paper, mining, food processing, water and wastewater, oil sands processing, petrochemical and refining industries. Ian is co-author, with Augusto Pereira, of ISA's popular "Foundation Fieldbus Pocket Guide" now in its fourth edition..

Ian is also an active volunteer with ISA, serving as Vice-President of the Standards and Practices 2005/6 and is presently Canadian Chair of IEC TC65, SC65B and SC65E.. Ian is known as a digital communications evangelist and his passion for the topic has taken him around the world to share his experiences.

Ian has accumulated over 20 years experience in oil sands mining where he supported plant operations using standard mining processes of slurry transport, flotation / separation cells and multiphase flow. He is also experienced in truck and shovel operations with associated crushing and solids transport including real time maintenance/operating data for this mobile equipment via wireless communications.

Ian has the ability to explain technology in simple terms that can be understood by others without the same level of theory or experience, a rare quality!

Haresh Khemani

Haresh Khemani is passionate about Mechanical Engineering, and teaching and writing. In a career spanning over 17 years he has gained extensive industrial experience in the area of utilities, which provides him command in this field to teach and provide consultancy. Haresh has worked in the installation, erection, and commissioning of utility plants, such as air compression plants, water chilling plants, central air conditioning systems, chlorine liquefaction plants, diesel generators, and payloader etc. He has been responsible for the maintenance and operations of the above plants, along with boiler plants, and various types of pumps and blowers.

As a lecturer at the SSVPS College of Engineering, Haresh has taught his favorite subjects including Refrigeration and Air Conditioning (HVAC), Thermodynamics, Automobile Engineering, Power Plant Engineering and Industrial Instrumentation. He has written course materials on HVAC and other subjects for multiple companies including IDC.

One of his major involvements has been with www.brighthub.com, where he and his team have published more than 2500 articles covering various areas of engineering. He has personally written more than 400 articles for the website.

Over the years, Haresh has specialized in the fields of utilities of which HVAC is the major part. He has worked in the industry as HVAC consultant and has also written a number articles and course materials in this field.

Robert Holm

After completing his studies in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (MEng) and applied mathematics (BSc Hons) in 1997, Robert worked in industry as a power electronics design engineer. The design of electrical machines was his next pursuit, and he completed a PhD at TU Delft in the Netherlands on this subject. His thesis project was not only an academic study, but very practical: a high-speed permanent-magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) was built from his design and mounted as part of a flywheel in a passenger bus in Eindhoven, where it was in active service for several years. Upon his return to South Africa, Robert worked in teaching and research at two universities: University of Johannesburg (UJ) and North-West University (NWU). While at NWU, he designed three more high-speed PMSMs for industrial and research applications. He was also involved with solar, wind and hydrogen energy systems. Next, Robert ventured into the gold mining industry by working for Gold Fields Mining Innovations as electrical engineer, where he completed novel electromechanical and power electronics designs for mining robots. His experience in mining robotics then led him to the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), where he worked in field robotics software development. Since late 2014, Robert moved back into his previous field of electrical machine design via an internal transfer to the CSIR Landward Sciences competency area. Several high- and low-speed machines are being designed for military and civil applications (particularly the rail industry). His current activities include electrical machine design, power electronics, drives and power systems, control systems and PLC/SCADA applications. Robert's previous career experience includes: software engineering, mathematical modeling, computer vision, robotics, sensors, systems engineering, transformers, switchgear, power systems and other high-power electrical engineering, embedded design, industrial power systems and renewable energy.

Hadi Harb

Hadi has more than 15 years of experience in the development and management of Artificial Intelligence and Audio Signal Processing projects.

From 2000 to 2004 he pursued his PhD working on content-based multimedia indexing. He then worked as a research engineer at Centrale Lyon Innovation SA from 2004 to 2006. During his PhD and research engineer work period, he participated in many R&D projects in collaboration with world-class institutions such as INRIA, France Télécom R&D and IRCAM. He issued for 2 patents and published 17 articles in known international scientific journals and conference proceedings.

From 2006 to 2015 he co-founded and managed Ghanni, a company specialized in multimedia content recommendation and identification. Several European radio stations and websites licensed Ghanni’s music recommendation technology. In 2015 he restructured Ghanni to transform it into a consultancy company in the domain of Artificial Intelligence where he acts as the principle consultant. His current interests are in the application of Artificial Intelligence techniques to natural language understanding and human-like process control.

Hadi holds a MEng (2000) in electrical-electronic engineering. He earned his MSc in 2001 and PhD in 2004 both in computer science from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées INSA Lyon, and the Ecole Centrale de Lyon respectively.

Paul Maj

In 1990, Paul was appointed Adjunct Professor at the Technical University of Denmark’s Institute of Automatic Control Systems. The Technical University of Denmark is one of the leading universities in Europe. He was responsible for teaching the industrial applications of microprocessors and networking technologies and after winning a competitive grant commissioned a pilot plant with the associated control systems.

As Associate Professor in the Australian University sector he was responsible for teaching computer and network systems engineering. In this capacity he twice won a university teaching award for excellence – one of only three staff to have achieved this distinction. In addition to this he received a National Carrick Citation Award for the development of world class curriculum.

As Deputy Chairman on the educational sub-committee of the Institute of Instrumentation & Control in Western Australia (IICA-WA) he was instrumental in the development of first degree in Instrumentation and Control in Australia.

His work received international recognition. Paul was invited to collaborate with some of the world’s leading organisations responsible for defining international standards and educational best practices.

He was the first Australian invited to be a reviewer for the American National Science Foundation (NSF) course and curriculum improvement program held in Washington, DC. Paul was the first Australian to be a judge for three IEEE International Education Awards for Academics. The IEEE is the world’s largest professional body for the advancement of technology. Paul was a key note speaker at the 12th International Conference on Electrical, Engineering/Electronics, Computer, Telecommunications and Information Technology in June, 2015. His presentation was; World class ICT curriculum – eLearning, pedagogy and international best practices. Paul is also an active researcher and reviewer for a number of international journals.

Allan Butler

Allan worked for Curtin University and Australian Defense Force before joining SECWA in 1990, where he worked in remote power stations commissioning and decommissioning various power stations in the north of Western Australia. In 1992, he joined the DBNGP as their Corrosion Protection Officer, from which he was internally promoted up the organisation holding various roles nationally and state based for the various owners of the DBNGP. The roles varied across operations, maintenance and projects where he has had direct and indirect responsibility.
Allan was the project manager on a significant SCADA upgrade which controlled one of Australia’s largest SCADA systems, spanning some 1600 kilometres and supplied natural gas to the Perth Metropolitan Area from the Carnarvon basin.
Allan has recently completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Control Systems and Project Management and is currently completing a Master’s Degree in Automation Control and Business Management.
Allan has been elected to the grade of senior member of the IEEE and also holds memberships with the Australian Institute of Project Management and currently sits on the ISA committee for alarm management.